Linux is an example of software with a Rapid Development Lifecycle. It's created, used, feedback is received, modified, used, feedback is received, etc.
Usually the process of modification is largely realised through addition of features and code, which has been the case with a lot of Linux development. Right now the Linux kernel code base is undergoing something of a revision, where the addition of code and features is less important than the improvement of existing features.
If Linux were developed under a different model, such as the Waterfall development model, then this could easily be seen as a sign that its development were drawing to a close with the finalisation of features. But since Linux uses Rapid Development, all the current revisions signify is that the developers are making sure they have a solid foundation for later improvements.
I don't see the Linux lifecycle ending any time soon. It may fragment in the next few years, in my view, but it's not about to die.

>>>And what percentage of Windows 95 (a ground-up rewrite, from what I understand) remains now?

None. Because Windows 7 is part of the new NT line (3.1, 4.x, 5.x, 6.x) while Win95/98/m.e. were part of the old MS-DOS line that microsoft terminated.

The real question is: What percentage of the original NT 3.1 still remains, and the answer is probably "a lot" due to the need for backwards-compatibility with old apps (like Office 1995/97, or IE 5/6), as demanded by business customers. Don't know what % though... maybe 25%?

Yeah, I really don't know what this guy meant, but it's worth noting that being at the end of a life cycle generally also means you're at the beginning. That's why it's called a "life cycle" and not a "life timeline". The end of the cycle is when you start over.

So to me, if you say that a piece of software is "at the end of its life cycle", I read that as, "This software is complete. Time to start working on the next version."

By your logic, marketshare % == hacking attempts %. You do realize that many servers run Linux right? According to Forrester Research 48% of businesses surveyed used OSS. If Linux represents even half of that then at least 24% of businesses use Linux. That would mean 24% of all exploits would have to be targetting Linux. Funny I don't see 24% of botnets being written for Linux. The vast, vast majority are written for Windows.

Also hackers do it for the glory or for money. If they are after money, then they would target financial institutions. Also they attack the weakest point. So far hackers target customers of these institution who use Windows, not the servers themselves that use Linux or Unix or whatever. Maybe because Linux servers are harder to compromise than Windows desktops?

If we've now got to the point where Linux (and windows, too by the look of it) are really just in maintenance mode: with all the features pretty much in place and mere "tick-over" releases to fix a few bugs and support new hardware - where do we go from here?

Will our desktops look the same in 20 years time as they do now (and did, to a large extent 20 years ago - certainly for windows). Will we still be running x86-based hardware - albeit with solid-state mass storage instead of spinning stuff? If so, then it does sound to me like a rather boring environment for an IT enthusiast to be in. Even todays innovations: such as tablets are really just PCs sans keyboards: they still employ the same basic paradigm of applications occupying windows on a screen./

However, you never know - there could still be some development left to do. Who can say, by 2030 we might even have got up to kernel version 2.8

Quite honestly, I don't have much experience with autotools. There are two reasons: what little I've seen looks, at first glance, as a nightmare, and, as a user, the experience is horrible. Specifically, autotools is slow. These days I spend more time./configuring than I do actually compiling, especially with distcc (./configure not being parallelizable). Even worse, sometimes I need to rebuild all of the scripts due to some patch, and that adds even more time to an already ridiculously inefficient process. I mean, seriously, why do I need to check for a C compiler, determine the maximum length of commandline arguments, and figure out if I have 20 system headers and 30 libc functions every time I want to compile a package?

Meanwhile, CMake is a hell of a lot faster, uses a more modern language, and can integrate better with other build environments. I've used CMake for a couple of projects and, although the language does have its quirks, it's mostly been smooth sailing. Where I don't use/need CMake, I use simple Makefiles.

So no, I'm not in a position of familiarity with both systems to be able to do a detailed objective comparison as a developer, but as a user I can clearly say CMake is much superior (at least the way it is used by actual projects), and as a developer I can at least say CMake is nice. Several large projects have migrated from autotools to CMake, and I bet they had a good reason.

Meanwhile, most small projects using autotools only appear to be using them because "it's what everyone else uses" and don't really understand them. Maybe autotools is great if you're an autotools guru, but it's still slow, and most people aren't going to invest the time to properly learn a system based on arcane tools. As far as I'm concerned, it's the CVS of build systems - sure, it kind of works works, but honestly, I'd rather either use a modern DVCS or stick with tarballs and patches (bare Makefiles).

Money is the 'product of your body?!?' You crap money? Amazing. Money is a social construct, meaningless without social agreement. The ability to amass and preserve a surplus is not an individual ability, it is an emergent phenomenon enabled by the agreement of a society to honor money. Without society, money is meaningless.

In a true socialist state, no one can force anyone to do anything, unlike a capitalist state, where those with capital control and dominate those without. If you are poor, and lack education (something capitalist overlords work to ensure, so you will be a more malleable slave) then you are a slave. Kiss masters ass or die of starvation, and master will work to ensure that any attempt by the peasants to band together to protect their interests and provide for themselves is derided as "socialism." Indeed, mutual benefit societies (A.K.A "The State") are inherently evil, and ruthless selfishness is a virtue.

As a native Russian speaker, I must report that to my astonishment, the translation is very precise and professional. More than that, the quote is actually EASIER to read and comprehend in English. Many of the words are actually borrowed from English, which is common in computer technical jargon.
The speech was obviously prepared in advance. It sounds almost like the original of the speech was written in English, possibly at Microsoft headquarters in US, then translated to Russian. Another explanation would be that the speech writers read too many translated documents and learned to think in similar patterns. I am just speculating, but honestly, who needs to know Russian with translations like this?:)

I asked where he got my information and why he was calling me. I had not used any of those services for over 8 years. He told me that a company was looking for a VB coder and I replied, "I don't do that anymore," to which he replied, "I know! Nobody does. That's why I dug back this far in our history to find someone with experience."

Windows is widely adopted in Russia. Even Russian spies in US have been caught recently because they were using windows! By saying "Russian" he means "all of us, Russians, use Windows, and this Linux gizmo is alien and unfriendly. There is a stigma to it.
I have a Russian friend, who is a software company CTO in Russia, and in response to my random remark about Linux he said "Linux? When is it going to die already?". Well, he does develop software for Windows, but could just as easily switch to anything else. It's like IT people have been brainwashed over there.
Please note, that 90% of Russian Windows installations are pirated, so it is free for them, as in "free as beer", which hinders Linux adoption.

Don't they? Einstein was one of the smartest men who ever lived, and his writings are filled with tons of mis-spellings..... not because he was dumb but just because he wrote so quickly that he made mistakes. Ditto a friend of mine who has a Ph.D. in engineering science... he has a nasty habit or writing words without the "silent e" at the end. "writ" instead of "write"

So I flubbed and said 512K instead of 512M. BFD.

You know what I meant - NT 6.1 aka Seven runs in half a gigabyte comfortably where NT 6.0 Vista did not (even though it was supposed to). And now I think I'll go try Puppy Linux as I have an old 64K laptop I don't want to throw away.

First, about the Amish: you don't need to deal with money to be required to pay money to the government for taxes. Even if you use the barter system for everything, the IRS requires you to pay taxes based on the market value of the goods and services you trade. So, for instance, if you agree with your neighbor to fix his car in exchange for him mowing your lawn for a month, you and he both are required to determine the Dollar amount this transaction is worth, and count it as income on both your tax returns, and pay taxes on it. Of course, in reality, no one does that, but the law is the law. It's easy for people working normal jobs to get away with not reporting this stuff, since they already have tons of thousands of dollars in regular W-4 income, but if someone appears to be making a good living (like with a farm), but isn't reporting any income or paying any taxes, the IRS generally takes a dim view of that. How (or if) the Amish get away with not paying taxes, I have no idea.

Now for the rest of your argument, it makes no sense. You're talking about some kind of exchange for living in society; what exchange are you talking about? The previous poster was talking about the common criticism of Marxism which is that everyone seems to receive the same income (or at least some guaranteed minimum income), whether or not they feel like working, and that this system is unsustainable. What is your response to that charge?

And then of course you go off on some nonsensical rant about capitalism and fellatio. Sorry, but that's not capitalism at all; capitalism is when people are able to control capital and use it to invest in industry. Of course, in the most successful capitalist societies (which I would argue are the Western European nations), there's strong governmental controls over the market to make sure that things don't get out of control, and companies aren't allowed to grow too large and become too powerful. Capitalism and free-market economies work best when the playing field is level, so to speak, companies aren't allowed to grow too large and powerful, and the rules are tilted in favor of smaller competitors rather than larger incumbents.

The Soviet experiment showed why Marxism and planned centralized economies simply don't work, and North Korea is still trying to make it work, to no avail. China however gave up on it, and now that they have a free(r) market, they're quite successful, even though they never gave up the authoritarian government part.

Regular folks emphatically do not like capitalism better. The poster boys for capitalism, Wall Street CEOs, are amongst the most loathed figures on the world scene today. And in any case, do try to compare apples to apples. People in first world European socialist democracies wouldn't trade places with Americans for anything, most of the world looks at us as ruthless barbarians who don't give a fuck about the poor. but more and more Americans are emigrating to these socialist democracies. Now, try to find me a capitalist state that went from subsistence level farming to being an industrial powerhouse in under fifty years, Like the Mondragon Cooperative did. You can't.

I don't know, dude. If taxation is theft, how would you call making $20000 worth of goods in a given month and being paid a $1000 salary? I think what makes people hate taxes is that those $200 come and then go, so you miss them much more than the other $18000 you don't even see. If I made $20000 a month, I wouldn't mind parting with $4000, honestly.